CONTENTS
"An' the west jes' smiled": Oklahoma Banking and the Panic of
1907
By Loren C. Gatch
Oklahoma's banking institutions remained generally unaffected as the Panic of
1907 struck Wall Street and the nation's other financial centers. Loren Gatch
relates the ways in which the Oklahoma Bankers Association and each commu-
nity's banks responded to the crisis. They calmed public fears of bank insol-
vency and developed ingenious ways to make currency flow in the economy. As
a result, Oklahoma created a bank deposit guaranty law, the nation's first. 4
Ragtown: Wirt, Oklahoma, and the Healdton Boom
By Elizabeth E. Freeman
The untamed Oklahoma oil-boom towns of the 1920s included Wirt, also called
Ragtown, in Carter County. Emerging overnight in the center of the Healdton
Field, Ragtown provided shelter and work for hundreds of assorted oil-field
characters. Elizabeth Freeman describes the community's growth and the prob-
lems of fire and police protection created by the lifestyles of people attracted to
labor and play in the oil field.                                 34
Bad Water and Epidemics: The Wages of Neglect at the Seneca
Indian School
By Christina Bieloh
Measles and typhoid killed dozens at Seneca Indian School in 1927 Founded in
1872 for Seneca, Wyandot, and Quapaw children, by the 1920s Seneca School
served as a boarding facility for Cherokee youths. Christina Bieloh analyzes
the issues of bad federal management and general neglect of health and sanita-
tion that put Indian students' lives in jeopardy at Seneca and at the nation's
other Indian schools in the early twentieth century.             56
Frontier Freedom: Seeking the Underground Railroad in
Indian Territory
By Diane Miller
As an avenue of escape for slaves, the Underground Railway was not limited to
the actions of whites in the Southern and Northern states. Diane Miller sum-
marizes the ways in which the nations of Indian Territory offered safe harbor
for runaway slaves and other African Americans seeking freedom.  76
NOTES AND DOCUMENTS
Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame: Donald E. Green and
Marvin E. Kroeker
By Linda D. Wilson                                               94
Lincoln's Legacy
By Richard Sias and Bob L. Blackburn                            101